Asset
by gracedUSA
Summary: When a valuable asset is kidnaped and a Columbian drug cartel is on their heels how will Neal and Peter find a way out? Don't own any of the characters. I'm new at this reviews are appreciated!
1. Chapter 1

It wasn't supposed to end like this – not at all.

It was a mortgage fraud case for goodness' sake.

But it was a mortgage fraud case linked to a Columbian drug ring. And that drug ring had just kidnapped the White Collar Division's top asset on the job – their top asset and his sister.

Neal had brought them the asset, Joel Lewis, after meeting his younger sister at an art opening a few weeks before. She worked in marketing, Joel worked as a tax auditor. He could spot mortgage fraud a mile away. And they needed that. They just didn't need him sitting in a basement somewhere getting his head bashed in.

The phone call came at six in the morning, startling Peter as he nursed his first cup of coffee over his files. A computer generated voice insisted the Columbian cartel would kill their captives in twenty-four hours, unless the FBI dropped all charges – for mortgage fraud and otherwise. The call had been long enough to triangulate, but only just. And it would be quite a task to penetrate the fortified warehouse where the call originated.

Bea didn't like waiting. Grocery store lines made her blood pressure go up, let alone sitting in a dark room, feeling her brother's unconscious body pressed up against hers, anticipating the next set of questions and the next set of blows.

So far they'd only hurt Joel – which was certainly bad enough. But she couldn't get their captor's parting words out of her head.

"You're awfully hard to break," he'd sneered, "wonder if you'll protect your baby sister better than yourself?"

As much as Bea dreaded the torment she was sure to face she knew it would be better this way, better if she died. Little Mia couldn't loose another parent – not with her mom dead and Joel's new girlfriend off in the Peace Corps. Not when all she had was her brilliant, crazy overachiever of a father.

She just wanted to get the memories out of her head. She just wanted to stop thinking about it – about how they'd tied her to a chair and hit her, harder than seemed like it could have been possible, about how she'd felt a rib break, not just the pain but the actual cracking in the bone, about how terribly it hurt when the flame had danced along the skin on her wrist…about how Joel had just stared, crying, sobbing, and apologizing to her…but never answering any of their captor's questions, never providing either of them any chance at relief.

Everything on her entire body felt wrong. She was bruised and cut and burnt and battered. She was starting to hit stages of pain tolerance she didn't know existed. She was hitting a crisis point – her body and mind were going to give up on her soon. And she wasn't even the one with information to reveal.

But soon she realized that the pain wasn't what felt wrong. What felt wrong was the body next to her. What felt wrong was that Joel had stopped breathing.

Bea didn't know where she found the energy to sit up, to shift her brother's motionless body onto his back, to check for breathing, to feel for a pulse. His heart still beat, a timid, weak, fragile pulse coming only every few seconds. But he wasn't breathing. Not even a trace. Acting on instinct, perfectly aware that she had no medical training, Bea unbuttoned his shirt then stopped when she saw what was underneath.

She knew her own skin was dappled with bruising and that in places it had split, sending out rivulets of blood. But her own injuries looked like nothing compared to this. Sometime, probably when she was unconscious from the pain and the shock, their captors had taken a flame not to Joel's wrists, but to his chest. There was blood everywhere and Bea couldn't sort out what to do…how to fix it…especially not as she felt his pulse slowing and fluttering under her fingers…especially not as she felt him slipping away.

Somewhere in her memory was advice to treat burns with smooth fabric, not a towel. So she pulled off her blouse and laid it over the injuries. Then, desperate, searching for comfort where she knew she couldn't find any, she just lay down next to him, held his hand, closed her eyes, and prayed at least one of them made it out alive.

The door banged open and Bea couldn't help but wince. Every inch of her body hurt and the noise did nothing to ease the throbbing in her head. Their captors – she wouldn't think of Joel as gone yet, not until she was absolutely certain – took one look at her prone brother then grabbed her by one wrist and dragged her to her feet.

"Are you really dead?" their captor mused aloud, nudging Joel's body with a heavily booted toe, "Or just playing? Trying to get us to give up?"

Bea just stood there, waited, her limbs and head heavy as she tried to stay upright on her own, not rely on the sadist holding her wrist.

"Let's see if you'll wake up for little sister," their captor growled, then one of the guards pulled a crowbar from his waistband and hit Bea across the ribs, sending her to her knees in spite of the grip on her wrist, making her scream no matter how hard she tried to keep quiet.

"Guess not."

It was Jones who found them.

The warehouse wasn't as fortified as the FBI had initially thought – just a prison, not a core holding for the entire cartel. Which was good, and bad. It was good because it made Beatrice and Joel easier to rescue; it was bad because it meant Beatrice and Joel wouldn't be able to go back to their normal lives – at least not until the cartel was disbanded.

Gun drawn, the young agent pushed open the once-heavily-barred door to a plain, blue shipping container – with no evidence of its living cargo but a few holes drilled in one wall for air. The sight that greeted him confirmed all their worst fears. Joel lay on his back, unmoving, his skin an alarming shade of gray and his chest smeared with an unimaginable amount of blood.

Beatrice sat beside him, her knees curled into her chest, her forehead resting against her legs, her arms wrapped around her ribs, her slim frame shaking with sobs.

Jones holstered his weapon and knelt down beside them. He checked Joel's pulse first, confirmed his suspicions, then gently lay a hand on Beatrice's back.

"Beatrice," he said quietly, her head rose, her wide green eyes met his, "we're gonna take care of this. It's gonna be okay. You're safe now."

She didn't reply. Her expression didn't change, but with one hand she gestured at her brother as he lay.

"Bea, I hate to say it, but I think he's dead," Jones replied.

"I know," Bea replied, then the tears came again and she pushed away from him, letting her head fall back against the hard, metal wall, rejecting Jones any time he tried to help.


	2. Chapter 2

"We can't take her to the hospital," Peter said decidedly, sitting in the back of an ambulance and watching the EMT's carefully, "they're drug dealers. There're too many variables and too many ways they could get a lethal dose of something illegal into her IV. I'll take her back home with me; can we borrow a surgeon from the Navy Jones?"

"I'll get on it…probably be a good twelve hours though," the younger man replied.

"Does she have twelve hours?" Peter asked the medics.

"Absolutely sir. She's not unstable. She's strong and young so she'll heal fairly quickly. She'll need monitoring with pulse ox for a good twenty four hours, then oxygen…" a look of panic crossed Peter's face when he thought about putting their traumatized asset on a ventilator, "not a ventilator Agent Burke, just oxygen and only for a few days. After that it'll be lots of antibiotics, some strong pain meds and a rather unimaginable amount of therapy I'd guess."

"You can keep her stable until I get things settled then take her to my place?" Peter asked.

"Like I said, sir. She's real beat up, but she'll be fine," the medic replied calmly.

"Just…don't…don't put restraints on her…no matter what…unless she risks hurting herself more. You guys recognize those scars on her wrists and ankles…we don't need to bring that memory back."

"We promise sir."

Neal sat on his balcony, chewing a paintbrush and nursing his third glass of bourbon. He was just getting up to pour a fourth ill-considered glass when the phone rang. Grabbing the receiver he picked it up before the first ring had finished. It was Peter.

"She's okay. He's not," Peter said.

"What's okay and what's not okay?" Neal asked, pouring another bourbon just in case.

"She's hurt and traumatized, but she'll make a full recovery in four to six weeks. He's dead."

"Okay. What hospital did they take her to?" Neal wondered aloud, hoping he would be allowed to visit.

"None. Jones got a favor from a friend at the Navy…we've got a surgeon and a medic staying at my place keeping an eye on her. Risk putting her in a hospital was too high."

"Risk for what?"

"We didn't take down the whole cartel. There were only five of them there."

"So she's still in danger."

"You could say that."

"Can I come see her?" Neal's voice was taking on a frantic edge.

"You sure? She's in quite a state, I can tell you…"

"I need to see her. This is my fault…" Neal interrupted him, but Peter interrupted back.

"This is a lot of things but it's not your fault. Not that it matters now who's fault it is. Important part is, she's going to be fine. And yeah, come visit her any time, we can't get her to stop crying, maybe your charms will help."

He took a deep breath before knocking on the Burke's door. He needed to see Bea, but he wasn't entirely sure if he was mentally prepared.

Elizabeth let him in, her eyes sad but her mouth attempting a smile.

"Just remember…she'll get better," El promised, squeezing his shoulder before letting him into the guest bedroom.

Beatrice was curled on her side, her wrists and ribcage wrapped in bandages, an IV protruding from the crook of one arm, a tube for oxygen hooked around her ear. But that wasn't the bad part. Those were just medical accouterments, things it was easy to look past. The part he couldn't get past were the bruises that dappled her skin, black and green against her honey and cream flesh. The part he couldn't get past was the line of blood that still trickled from a cut on her hairline, pooling in the hollow behind her ear, tangling with her ebony hair. The part he couldn't get past was the fact that she was sobbing.

He knelt down beside her instantly, glancing at Peter, the surgeon and the medic to make sure he wasn't doing something wrong. They all nodded in encouragement, but their faces stayed grave. Neal stretched out a hand and stroked Beatrice's face, brushing a strand of bloody hair away from her beautiful green eyes – clamped tight now with pain and fear. At his touch her eyes fluttered open and she gazed at him for a long moment, then she started to still, started to register where she was and who he was.

"Neal?" she breathed, reaching for him, somehow managing to sit up through the pain, collapsing into his arms.

"What happened to her?" he mouthed as Bea curled into him, her whole body shuddering, clinging to him, her finger's tracing the curve of his neck, the line of his shoulders, as though trying to confirm he was real.

"Quite a lot," Peter replied, then gestured for Neal to follow him.


	3. Chapter 3

"She's hurt, but that's not the big problem right now. There's a fractured rib…or four, a handful of second-degree burns and a lot of bruising. They did an ultrasound and all her organs are intact. Most everything's external except the fractures…but I digress," Peter said, "cause the big problem is that she won't let anyone touch her. You were the first she responded to with anything other than sobbing and terror. She'll fall asleep occasionally then wake up within ten minutes screaming. She's pulled out that IV eight times in the last six hours. Our guess is that they might have drugged her at some point and that's why she's reacting poorly to having needles around. But she's too bruised to look for tracks..."

"She was tortured Peter," Neal responded, "I'd be panicked too, especially if I was a twenty-something ad writer. There's not exactly a high mortality rate in that field."

"How old?" Peter asked, distracted. He thought of Neal as a kid, and it had never occurred to him just how young Beatrice must be.

"So far as I know she's twenty-three. She just finished an MBA with Boston College, she would have finished undergrad when she was about twenty-one so…give or take," Neal answered, looking perplexed at the sudden question.

"I was still at Quantico. I'd never seen a dead body at twenty three, let alone watched my brother die," Peter muttered.

"Like I said. You wonder why she's crying…"

"You make her feel better," Peter said.

"Is that an order or an observation?"  
"Both."

The next time Bea woke up it was in Neal's arms. And that helped. That gave her some sense of security. Though her gut told her this entire situation was wrong, her gut liked Neal. Liked his intellect, liked his talent, liked his willingness to bend the rules provided the only place anyone got hurt was their pocketbook. She was her own kind of con, after all. All admen were.

So when she woke up with his strong, warm arm draped across her the panic didn't set in. She didn't wonder what was next. She knew she was safe.

Then she remembered. Mia.

"Neal," she whispered, her voice rasping and her chest throbbing, "Neal!"

"Hey, what is it?" he asked gently, quietly, rubbing his thumb along the curve of her arm, above the bandages and the burns.

"Who's looking after Mia?"

"Mia?"

"Joel's little girl."

Neal hesitated – truth was, he had no idea. Truth was, she'd be able to tell if he was lying. Truth was, he needed a plan. And time to formulate one.

"Give me one sec, I'll check. I'm sure she's just fine," he whispered, disentangling himself from her and getting to his feet.

He slipped out the door and confronted Peter.

"There's a baby involved in all this?" he asked.

"What?" Peter replied.

"Apparently Joel had a little girl named Mia. Bea's asking about her. We've got that covered I assume?"

"Um…we will. How does Moz feel about small children?"

It probably wasn't the wisest choice to bring a three-year-old to visit her severely injured aunt less than twenty-four hours after her father was killed. But Moz wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking that he needed a break, and some wine.

"Take her," he said as he walked into the Burke's uninvited and unannounced.

"My daddy's here?" little Mia asked innocently when Mozzie handed her over to El.

"Not exactly sweetheart."

Bea started throwing up twelve hours in. The medic and the surgeon assured them it was normal. That didn't mean anyone was pleased.

It was just after she talked with Mia. El sat on the edge of the bed and tried to keep the little toddler from snuggling her aunt – all to no avail.

"I make you feel better," Mia said definitely.

"Thank you," Bea gasped as the child wrapped overzealous arms around Beatrice's chest, fighting tears as her ribs throbbed anew.

"Cuddles always make it better," Mia added, looking up, kissing her hand and pressing it to the cut on Beatrice's forehead.

"They do sweetheart," Bea whispered, kissing her own hand and pressing it to little Mia's heart.

"Where's Daddy?" Mia asked, settling in with her head resting against Beatrice's thigh.

"Mia, you know how we talked about Jesus the other day? Last month…when it was Easter?"  
"Jesus loves even more than mommy or daddy?"

"Yeah."

"Jesus takes care of everybody?"

"Yeah…and about how Jesus takes care of people even if they aren't here with us anymore," Beatrice said, swallowing hard.

"Daddy's not here anymore?" Mia's eyes filled with tears and her lip began to quiver.

"Sweetheart some very bad men took me and your daddy yesterday. They hurt me and…sweetheart they took Daddy away. He's with Jesus now. But he can't be with you."

"Daddy die?"

"I'm sorry Mia."

And in that moment El saw Beatrice's threshold break, saw her hit a crisis point, saw the pain and the fear and the grief take over. So she gathered up the tired, saddened toddler and slipped out, sending Neal in on her heels.

She gave Mia to Jones, who was bunking on the couch while everything got settled. Moz and Diana were unhappily holding down the fort at Neal's, trying not to kill each other, keeping an eye on June and making sure the cartel didn't make an appearance there.

Elizabeth went over to Peter and laid a hand on his tense shoulder.

"How do you tell a three-year-old their only parent just died?" she murmured sadly.

"That couldn't have been fun. How'd Bea take it?" Peter asked.

"She did okay at first, then broke down sobbing as I left. I don't know how she's getting through…"

Elizabeth didn't have a chance to finish before Neal came running in. He pushed past them, into the kitchen, to the Navy surgeon clutching his fifth cup of coffee that night.

"She started vomiting and she's panicking," he said, his face white and his eyes wide.


	4. Chapter 4

Neal's touch still calmed Bea a little, but the pain of vomiting with broken ribs was keeping her just on the borderline of consciousness.

"You're still okay Bea," he murmured as she took a deep shuddering breath, wiping her face with a cold, wet towel the Navy medic had provided, "I'm still here and no one's gonna hurt you anymore."

"Promise?" the broken plea didn't match with the Beatrice they knew. It was too full of terror, uncertainty, too full of pain. Neal kissed her face – kissing her for the first time since they'd met at the gallery opening what seemed like a world away – and felt her body start to relax.

"You need sleep Bea," the surgeon said, "that'll help a lot."

Beatrice just shook her head.

"It will help," Neal reassured her, "being tired never makes anything better."

"Every time I close my eyes," Beatrice whispered, and Neal could see in her eyes how much it hurt to say it out loud, "I see them. I see them hurting my brother and I see them torturing me and I see his dead body and I remember how there was nothing I could do about it and…"

She broke off, tears running down her cheeks.

"I'm not gonna leave you," Neal murmured, "I will make sure you're okay. You may dream about them…but you don't have to worry about them…you're safe here."

Oh how he wished he could know with certainty that those words were true.

They heard the gunshot at four in the morning. Everyone was asleep: Peter and Elizabeth in their room, Jones on the couch with Mia tucked against his side, the medic and the surgeon on chairs in the kitchen, Neal and Beatrice in the guest bedroom. Jones reacted first, pulling his gun and rushing Mia to the medic's waiting arms, urging them to find cover. Moments later Peter was downstairs, his own pistol grasped expertly in his palm.

"Call 911," Peter told the surgeon quietly, "and go make sure Bea stays calm."

"Yes sir," said the sailor, departing immediately.

"Outside, behind the house…right?" Jones confirmed with his supervisor.

"By my best guess, yep," Peter replied.

"NYPD's on the way," the surgeon said quietly, hanging up the phone and disappearing up the steps.

"So we just need to hold of a drug cartel for three to five minutes," Jones said, "think we can do that with two .45s?"

"I think we better try," Peter answered.

Neal got to his feet in a hurry, waking Beatrice before her next nightmare had a chance. The night had dragged on forever, even though only the half of it was over. Bea was screaming herself awake every hour or so and the worsening sleep deprivation made her harder to comfort each time.

"You don't have to go? Do you?" she asked, her voice stronger than it had been, but carrying a childlike tremor underneath.

"Not until someone else is here with you," Neal said, deftly checking the perimeter of the room to see if the shooter was close by.

"Okay…good…" Beatrice murmured, reassuring herself, running her hand along her battered ribs, tears glistening unshed in her eyes.

"But I do need to get you to better cover. You're in an easy sightline," Neal said, glancing back at her then around the room.

"A what?" Beatrice asked, startled out of her reassurance.

"Don't worry. Just…" another gunshot cut him off mid-sentence.

"Neal," Bea's voice broke in the single syllable.

"Sorry," Neal said quickly, lifting her into his arms and trying to ignore her instinctive flinching and whimpering.

He opened the door to the bathroom – a good spot with a clear exit – a window onto the house next door's roof – but without good sightlines for a sniper. He set Beatrice on the rug then lay every towel he could find in the bathtub, lifting her into his arms again, he settled the both of them behind the porcelain ledge – hoping the shooting would stop – hoping she would calm – hoping somehow, beyond a hope, everything would be alright.

Wherever the shooter was, he was good at hiding. Peter opened the back door inch by tenuous inch, leading with his weapon. He heard another bullet ricochet of the brickwork and ducked instinctively, searching for substantial cover in his tiny garden. And then another bullet struck the masonry, sending a shower of brick dust. And then suddenly there were too many bullets: too many for just one shooter, too many for even a half dozen.

They were surrounded, and they needed a plan – a plan that wasn't just trying to wait for NYPD.

Peter locked the door behind him then knelt, trying to keep out of sight.

"Jones they've got at least ten snipers trained on the back of the house. I don't want to think about how many they have anywhere else."

"So what do you want to do?"

"I want to get us out of here. All of us. Far away."

"You got a plan?"

"I think so."

"They associate you and me and Neal and Bea with the FBI, not the others. They don't know them and that means, fingers crossed, they won't try to take them out. We'll send them to a safe house. We still have a couple cars outside, right?"

"Just the one. And they'll follow an FBI car if they see any of us get into it…El should be safe…but not you and me," Jones replied, still gripping his pistol, sitting dead still on the Burke's kitchen floor, back pressed against the cabinets.

"What about us?" Jones asked, any fear expertly disguised behind years of training to stay calm.

"Neal can steal a car…" Peter muttered under his breath.

"And go where?"

"Upstate. My dad had a cottage by the lakes. We'll abandon the car a couple miles out, try not to leave a trail. It should work. And then once NYPD clears this mess up we'll use Neal's anklet to get a helicopter in to bring us back."

"That sounds ambitious," Jones' voice displayed a hint of skepticism.

"NYPD called to say they need SWAT, don't want a hostage situation. Are waiting for our directions. So our current choices are ambitious or dead."


	5. Chapter 5

Jones took it upon himself to get Mia, their borrowed medical team and El into the car. Morning was getting close – it was almost five – and with the right clothes, luggage and demeanor Jones hoped they would be able to convey that El and "her" baby were just trying to catch an early flight.

It worked.

The snipers were waiting for their real target. Who that target was no one could be certain. Did they want to finish what they'd started with Bea? Or kill one of the agents that had interrupted their job?

Meanwhile Peter brought Beatrice and Neal up to speed on their rather slapdash plan.

"How fast can you steal a car?" he asked.

"Thirty-five seconds," Neal replied without hesitation.

Bea's face showed equal parts fear and respect.

"It's like riding a bike," he said reassuringly, "and I had a rather notoriously misspent youth."

"More like life," Peter pointed out.

"Jumping to the part where you get us out of here?" Beatrice suggested, she was still only half awake, but more cogent now than she had been before. She still calmed at Neal's touch, but she didn't panic at Peter's.

"Neal steals a car, as discreetly as possible, we get in, avoiding the inevitable hail of bullets, and then we head upstate. My family has an old hunting cottage. It's about ten miles off the road. Ditch the car and hit the woods. We'll have somewhere safe once we get there."

"Except…" Beatrice began.

"Ten miles?" Neal finished.

"She doesn't weigh much," Peter said, trying to encourage himself more than anything else.

"Peter can I talk to you for a second?" Neal asked, he slipped out of Bea's arms and drew Peter over to the opposite corner of the room.

"What? It's a good plan. The best we've got right now," Peter said quickly, defensively.

"You think she can tolerate three and a half hours on foot? Even if she's not the one walking that's gonna hurt. And we can't risk having her on a narcotic where we can't get EMS right away," Neal pointed out, "She's barely staying conscious as it is. Unless you have some really impressive pain meds that happen to be stimulants not depressants…"

"Neal NYPD scoped out the house. There's no way they can handle this without making things worse…"  
"How much worse?"

"Lots of firepower, lots of bodies. Let's leave it at that."

"Okay. I'm in."

"Alright, get her in some real clothes and grab a first aid kit. We're on in five."

They made it. A couple grazes but nothing serious, then into a car and off to upstate. Bea was half asleep in the back, whimpering occasionally as she struggled to get comfortable in the cramped sedan.

"You couldn't have picked a bigger car for me to steal?" Neal asked as Beatrice rearranged herself in his lap for what must have been the tenth time in an hour.

"I was going for non-descript. I wasn't thinking about size," Jones muttered, keeping his eyes on the dark road ahead of them. They were heading for the Allegheny Mountains. It would be four more hours. And they were all praying that by the time they got to Peter's boyhood cottage there would be word from NYPD - word that they could go home.

There wasn't.

At least not when Peter told Jones to pull over at a rough path through the woods.

"Please tell me you're joking Peter?" Neal said, his voice laced with disbelief and worry.

"Unfortunately, no."

Neal sighed and gently shook Beatrice awake.

"You okay?" he whispered.

She nodded.

"Can you walk a little ways?" he asked.

"I can try," came her uncertain reply.

Trying was a good word. It left lots of room for success, or failure as it was. Leaning on Jones for support she managed two miles, barely. When they stopped she slumped unceremoniously to the ground, Peter caught her head the instant before it hit the roots, the hard-packed dirt and the brush. Her breath came in ragged gasps and tears ran down her face freely.

Neal knelt down next to her, whispering her name, wiping the sweat off her face, kissing her forehead.

"We've got five minutes," Peter said.

When Neal shot him a worried glance he continued, "We don't need to be caught out here after dark. It's taken us 4 hours to cover two miles and we've got eight more to go."

No one spoke. Beatrice's breath came a little more easily now. The tears had stopped, at least for the moment, and she grasped Neal's hand tightly enough to remind them all that she was still fighting.

"You look tired Jones," Peter said, trying to stay calm, trying to ease the palpable tension, "I'll help Bea make this next leg."

"M'kay," Beatrice moaned, letting Neal help her up and draping her arm around Peter's shoulders.

It wasn't a lack of willpower that made Bea stop. Her body just gave up. She'd made it six more miles – a miracle. It was getting dark now and they were getting close. And suddenly Peter felt dead weight on his shoulder. Beatrice's arm slipped away from him as she collapsed in the brush, her knees hitting the ground hard, Jones barely reacting fast enough to keep her head from doing the same.

She was trying.

She offered to get up and keep going.

But all the time there were tears.

And all the time her breathing got less and less steady and her face grew more and more pale.

Neal caressed her neck and kissed her. She reacted, leaning into him, returning the affection. She was staying conscious. But they had no idea how long that would last.

"She's going into shock Peter," Jones whispered urgently, "we can't just stay here. It's gonna be dark in half an hour and I can feel the temperature dropping already…"

"Can you carry her?" Peter asked, not listening to Jones' words, focusing only on the task at hand.

"Sure, but…"

"That's not gonna take the pain away," Peter finished, "I know. It's not good for her ribs. I know. But at least it won't make the exhaustion any worse. I can take her later on if you need me to. I'm sure Neal can too."

"I'm pretty sure Neal would use any excuse, medical or otherwise, to get his hands on her," Jones said, with half a smile.

"I think you're probably right."

When they finally got to the cabin, close to midnight, Beatrice was unconscious, dead weight in Neal's arms. Peter broke the lock and let them in. There was a good supply of firewood, some matches, a few boxes of dreadfully stale cereal, but not much else.

Neal sat down on the faded, plaid couch with Beatrice still in his arms. He pressed two fingers to her throat, making sure her pulse was still steady even now that she'd fallen unconscious.

Jones went to work making a fire while Peter knelt beside his young CI and their even younger asset. Now, unconscious and muddy and too, too pale, she looked twelve-years-old. Peter kicked himself for getting her involved in any of this.

He checked her pupils, which reacted properly. She wasn't unconscious then…at least not right now…just hard in the grasp of a pain-induced sleep.

"How long do we have to stay here?" Neal asked feebly.

"I don't know…I'm thinking another twelve hours probably," Peter replied, checking his phone for a signal and almost shouting for joy when he realized there was one. He glanced back at the pair, intending to check on Bea again, but quickly got distracted. Neal was fading. He was sleep deprived and tired – Peter was sore from their trek, and smaller by a good two inches, so carrying Beatrice had to have taken more of a toll on him.

"Get some sleep," Peter said, patting Neal's shoulder paternally, "I'll help you get Bea settled next to you. We'll keep an eye on things. Just sleep."

And, for once too tired, too drained to put up a fight, Neal complied.

He woke up with Bea's head on his chest, her breathing even now, her face free from tears for the first time in days. Light streamed in through the tiny, plate-glass window and he squinted to make out the new figures in their secret abode.

"National Guard Search and Rescue," said a tall, dark skinned young man, extending a gloved hand to help Neal sit up, "FBI called us."

"Does this mean we can go home now?" Neal asked, rubbing his eyes blearily.

"It does," Peter replied.

Beatrice and Neal went on one more date once she recovered. He took her to a gallery and a nice dinner. But the whole time both of them knew something was wrong.

"Mia needs someone to look after her," Beatrice said quietly over coffee, "Joel's girlfriend would rather teach Latin American tribesman how to do math…apparently. So, I have custody now. But I can't have a baby. I don't have the resources. The time. So I'm moving, Neal."

"Where?" he asked, far too prepared for this scenario than he should have been.

"Back to live near my sister-in-law's family. Joel left when she died, but her mom says she'd love to look after Mia and…they're in Chicago…I can still work…"

"But…"

"But no more us. No more this," she took a deep breath then finished, "I'll miss you Neal."

"I'll miss you too Bea."


End file.
